Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Ian, never one to back away from fulfilling my obsessions or showing me with gifts, delivered this year with a puppet theme . . .specifically, MST3K. I recieved a silver Tom Servo necklace, 3 Gizmonics patches, a very warm red sweater that he stiched to read "Joike" (in reference the opening skit in Santa Claus; Gypsy had started knitting it for "the other guy" but ended up giving it to Mike) and, from his newly-sainted mother, 3rd-row tickets to go see Cinematic Titanic in Feb.

Ian also got me Hobgoblins 2, which is the un-riffed sequel to my very favorite episode. I unabashedly love Hobgoblins, occasionally exchange emails with Rick Sloane (who is a very smart and charming man) and I have the Fontanelles on my mp3 player. It's fun and it's silly and it's cheesy, a perfect execution of a very bad movie.

The sequel? Not so much.

I was expecting a sequel, but it's really more of a reboot. Kevin, Daphne and the gang are back, but Mr. McCready's in a mental ward, they're all in college and they've never been attacked by Hobgoblins before. We have to waste time getting to know the characters again even though we remember them from the first movie--Daphne's a slut, Amy's frigid, Kevin's a weenie, Kyle likes porn, Nick is a tool (literally and figuratively).

The Hobgoblins manifesting your biggest fear is kind of cool, but overall, it's too self-concious of it's cult status, and the joke's never funny when the target is in on it.

Also, the guy playing Steven Boggs (Kyle) part is ugly. Steven Boggs looked exactly like a guy who broke my heart when I was 17, but that didn't stop me from being the president and co-founding-member of the Steven Boggs Fan Club. My sister Hilary was VP, and he whole of our duties involved owning a pair of red shorts.

They did, however, make sure to play "Kiss Kicker" "Love-Me-Nots" and "Passion Kills" at various points throughout the movie. That brought joy to my heart.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

I'm doing a Boys on Film post early, because I can't keep my voice quiet on this. It's too stupid and anger-inducing and I'm home sick anyways.

Remember When He Looked Like This?

Alec Baldwin, former cutie and now professional coke-addled fathead, got kicked off a plane for refusing to turn off his phone. Why? Because he's more important that you--well, his reason was (other than being more important than you) was because he was playing Words With Friends.

And gamers are defending him.

Hardcore gamers disgust me. They are loathsome, vile creatures (I can say this because I've dated them) who think only of themselves and their stupid fake worlds. Hey, it's okay if I skip dinner with my girlfriend, I have a guild meeting! Couldn't come to class, I had to go on a raid! (yes, that was an actual excuse from a student). And now with Angry Birds and Words With Friends on our damn phones, we can ALL become self-absorbed douchebags!

Ten years ago we would have collectively told Alec Baldwin to clamp his jowls shut and to stop being such a nerd, then one of us would have given him a wedgie. Now, since it's socially acceptable to be a geek/jackass, we leap to his defense. He is the 1%, thinking that he has priviledges that we non-TV star 99% don't, and we're defending him because we too cannot tear our faces away from a game for a few hours.

Imagine if the flight attendant told him he'd have to stop snorting coke in order to put his tray table up. We'd be shaking our heads and saying "Poor Alec, he needs rehab." But because it's a game, and games are "harmless," we jump to defend a grown man who threw a temper tantrum because he had to stop playing his video game. A grown man. I haven't thrown a tantrum about a video game since I had a Nintendo.

Word to the wise, Alec. You have to turn your cell phones off when you're on a plane. It's the law, we all have to do it. If for no other reason than having your phone on means someone will call, and you'll answer, and then everyone around you has to listen to your stupid inane conversation for the entire duration of the flight and it would be completely justified for the flight attendants to strangle you with your oxygen mask. You can live for a few hours without your precious widdle tele-o-phone. Do a crossword puzzle. Watch It's Complicated as your in-flight movie. Nap. Flip through Skymall. Turn to the person next to you and say, "Hi, I'm Alec, I'm going to Denver, what should I do when I get there?"

Thursday, December 8, 2011

I watched Heavenly Creatures last week and it really freaked me out. Screaming, bloody people do that to me. Watching it before bed was probably not the smartest thing I've ever done.

But one of the things I learned about this is that Edgar-winning mystery writer Anne Perry is, in face, Juliet Hulme, who, other than being played by Kate Winslet was, in 1954, convicted of beating her best friend's mother's head in with a brick wrapped in a stocking.

She writes crime novels now.

Poser

Let's just say, hypothetically, that I had a professor who, if rumors are true, did hard time. Let's call him "The Grimace" because, well, that's what he looks like. And let's also say that this professor published a book of crime stories. But he, unlike Perry, won't talk about it. Absolutely refuses. And I suppose I can see why--although it's a great platform for a mystery writer and being a wuss about it only proves my point that Anne Perry is O.G. Sure, she doesn't go around bragging about bludgeoning a woman to death, but it's there on her wikipedia page for the world to see. No sense hiding from what someone can track down.

She knows murder because she's murdered someone. Her novels have an admitted raw intensity because she knows what it's like to take a human life. It's not what I would recommend as a course of action for a mystery writer, but damn if it doesn't--in some weird way--make me admire her just a little bit more. Maybe because she's not such a weenie about admitting it.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

It's about your ad, darling. You are a strong southern man with a perfect ass and inky eyes and abs I could bounce a quarter off of. You play sensitive, troubled, violent men with a charm and a grace usually relegated to the British. You have replaced Clive Owen as my primary brooding delivery system.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

For the last few weeks I've been obsessed with Justin Townes Earle's "Harlem River Blues," which is about as close to a come-to-Jesus moment as I've ever had with a song. Not because of the lyrics, which are ultimately about suicide, but just in that it's so exubrant and whole and uplifting and spiritually fulfulling that I tremble whenever I hear it. I want to put it on a mix tape and send it to Walton Goggins and tell him I think of Boyd Crowder whenever I hear it in hopes that he likes to too. I have become a disciple of JTE.

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. . . . despite the fact that he looks like an Irvine Welsh character

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So he was performing at Foothills last night and for twenty bucks, I had to go. Thor went too, and we both sat in revered silence while he played. I'm still new to his music, so I didn't know most of his songs, and although he played "Harlem River Blues" and my heart palpatated and I actually trembled, I was sad that he didn't play "Can't Hardly Wait," as he's been known to do.

But he officially won my heart when some drunk guy yelled "Play John Prine!" and he yelled back "Don't tell me what to do!" I want to marry him.

Also, I got Harlem River Blues on vinyl, and he signed it. It's the only signed record in my collection.